


Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

by Anonymous



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:07:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29228205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: The Demogorgon is dead, but Will’s mother failed to get to him in time. Eleven killed the monster, but couldn’t get back before the portal closed.Now, all the two can count on is each other, as they try their hardest to survive in the dead, twisted Upside Down. And hope, hope against hope, that some way of finding their way home will materialize.
Relationships: Will Byers/Eleven | Jane Hopper
Comments: 2
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	Separate Ways (Worlds Apart)

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from this wonderful song by Journey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfJQ6yveYH0

Will couldn’t remember a lot about the early days. He always remembered the adrenaline, the cold, the constant feeling like his body was about to give out. Nothing else than that.

The first week had been… the stuff of nightmares. In fact, that’s what he thought it was at first. He’d fallen off his bike, landed in a ditch unconscious, and his brain was making this up thanks to the cold and whatnot.

Day two, however, dashed that theory. This wasn’t a nightmare he’d be waking up from.

The next few days were taken with shaky steps. He didn’t know when he’d get home, if at all. He had to figure out some way of survival.

Day five, the Demogorgon got him. He just _barely_ managed to get out of its grip alive, but Castle Byers was no longer a viable hiding place. But, he _has_ to find somewhere to meet up with the others.

He decides the school is a good place to make that happen.

The school is just as dark and messed up as the rest of the place, not welcoming in the slightest. As he wandered the corridors of the place, something happened, something extraordinary.

It was _her_. The girl who had told him that his mother was coming. What was she doing here?

Will slowly approached, as her eyes snapped open, and she shot to her feet, looking at him in shock.

“Will?” She asked, her voice meek and quiet, almost like him. Good. Being quiet would serve to keep her safe in here.

“Y-Yeah, th-th-that’s me…” Will answered, shivering. You could make the excuse that it was talking to a girl, but he was so desperate for _any_ human contact, it would be physically impossible for him to lock up.

The girl across from him inhaled. “We’re… Mike?” She suddenly asked, looking around. “Mike? MIKE!”

“Hey, hey!” Will gestured. “Quiet! It’ll hear us!” He whispered.

“…dead.” She told him.

“It’s…” Will disbelievingly took a step back. “Dead… awesome.”

The building rumbled, as one of those small holes the monster used to get to and from this place and the other side snapped shut.

“Oh…” Will breathed, looking at the blank spot, as the girl ran over, trying to bang on the wall. “That’s not…”

She took a step back, focusing on the wall, and it suddenly fell, sending concrete showering everywhere.

“…no…” She hoarsely whispered, looking at it. “NO!” She screamed, falling down, dissolving into a mess of tears. “Mike…”

Will took a step, and froze, as he swore he heard _something_ growl. “Hey, come on…” He shakily reached out. “We… we need to get out of here.”

“I… I…” She stuttered blankly, as Will helped her up.

The growl emanated again, and he quickly grabbed her hand. “No time for talk, run!”

\---------

Day Six came, and with it, finally some identifier for Will’s would-be rescuer. Eleven. He’d commented on the strangeness of her name, and all she could do was offer a weak shrug in response, telling him ‘El’ in response. That was the thing about her he’d noticed. She could do things no one else could, but she was really, really underdeveloped in other parts.

Still, that didn’t mean she was a burden. Since the whole ‘rescue’ mission went pear-shaped, all the two could do to survive now was work together and find a way out _themselves._

…if there was a way out.

\----------

Day thirteen, and they raid the decayed counterpart of the police station. There’s something chasing them, no difference to before. But, what was the difference now, was that there was someone _other_ than himself he had to worry about. Will wasn’t too concerned with his own survival before, but now that El was in the picture, he had to start thinking about things bigger than himself.

They broke in (a loose term, the place was already busted wide open) and Will grabbed up the weapons that he could. A pistol for backup, and a Spas-12. El provided cover while he did that, and refused any of the devices that he attempted to give her. Her mind was her weapon, in more ways than one.

He could respect that, she did knock down a solid concrete wall, after all.

In the old days, he would’ve been squeamish about the guns. He never liked guns. Their only association with him was somebody trying to get him to be something he wasn’t.

But he’s not trying to run anymore. He’s trying to survive.

\---------

Food and water is difficult, but not impossible for the place. El can use her powers to rub the chunks of dead wood against each other with enough force to get a fire started, which they use to cook the weird plants and whatnot growing around the place.

The stuff tastes _awful_ , but always after eating it, they feel… boosted. More resilient, stronger. Alert.

Water is the better of the two. Purifying water is always the same, no matter where you do it. Boil it so the steam condenses on a leaf, filter it through rocks, whatever. It’s easier than trying to cook, which might as well be a shot in the dark.

Plus, water is tasteless.

\---------

Day thirty… one month stuck in this Hell. The faint hope of a way home evaporates more and more every day. El feels like she’s known Will long enough to tell him the truth, and she admits it.

It’s her fault he’s stuck there. She opened the gate, let the monster into their world.

Will can’t focus on being angry. Because there’s a gate, that means there’s a way back.

El won’t let him go look for it, though. The gate leads somewhere dangerous.

He asks her what could be more dangerous than where they are now.

El doesn’t answer him.

\---------

Day seventy, and the passage of time becomes obvious. Will’s running low on shells for his shotgun again, their clothes are becoming tight enough so they hinder movement, and his hair has gotten long enough to become a problem.

So that’s what their day becomes. Raiding the abandoned houses for anything they could use. One would go in, while the other stood guard.

They’ve become a pretty good team, now.

\----------

Day one-sixty, and they’re shaking up in what should be the Harringtons’ house. There’s no way to know when ‘night’ comes, but Will marks it as the time when the predators all suddenly stop for no visible reason.

They take shifts, as they always do. El falls asleep first, while Will keeps watch at the foot of the bed, clutching his shotgun protectively.

Will dreams of home when he sleeps. He wonders what El dreams about.

\----------

Day two hundred comes and goes just like all the others. There’d be nothing special about it, other than the fact that it was his mother’s birthday.

He knows he can’t communicate with her, but he does send her a silent prayer. And El joins in too.

He should be home. They should _both_ be.

\---------

Day three hundred… almost a full year. The enormous passage of time hits him, and he breaks down, glad that there’s nothing there to put a stop to it.

Will’s been running on autopilot for too long. He _needs_ this cry.

El sits across from him, and she can’t help it. Will doesn’t know if she’s actually an empath, or if she just is that emotionally sensitive, but he welcomes it.

He doesn’t feel alone anymore, at least.

…funny. Even when he and El were working together before, he felt alone.

\--------

Day three-hundred and fifty… and _It_ starts moving into the town. It’s like a living storm, moving with intelligence and malice, and it hangs around on the surface, looking around for something.

El sees the storm, and almost instantly locks up. She knows what it’s going after. The gate. It wants out.

They have to stop it. Close the gate on it and get through.

This is their chance to get home.

\----------

As the old saying goes though… the best laid plans of mice and men, and all that. El’s powers were useful for holding the Storm back, but when they got down into the lab… she doubts she can force her way through the gate, hold the monster back, _and_ remain oriented enough to close the gate on the monster.

She’ll have to stay.

Will begs, pleads with her. There has to be another way.

There isn’t. The thing is intelligent. _Any_ moment of weakness, for even a _second,_ and it’ll take the opportunity and run with it.

And so, in that moment, Will was torn between two worlds. Home, the place he’d been dreaming of for the past year, and here, where El would be stuck, alone.

Even if Will hadn’t gotten to know her over the past year, the decision he made would be plain.

He wasn’t going to abandon anyone to the fate he’d been subjected to upon first arriving here.

So, he took a breath, and said just two words. “Close it.”

El looked at him, telling him to go through, but he shook his head, bringing his shotgun up to point at the little dog-monsters she was holding back.

He’s not leaving her here, under _any_ circumstances. Not on her own.

El looks like she could cry but does it anyway. The gate knits itself back together from this side, and the two are stuck.

Just her and Will. In a dead world. Monsters chasing them on all sides. Just as it had been before.

Will hopes that if there’re people back home waiting for them to get back… they’ll move on.

All they have now is each other.

Each other is all they need.


End file.
